Acceptance of online shopping grew strongly amongst Australian consumers with a 66 percent increase in the number of people buying online in the year to November 2000, according to a report released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

More than 1.3 million Australian adults purchased or ordered goods and services for their own private use over the Internet. This was a substantial increase from the 803,000 adults that did likewise in the 12 month period to November 1999.

Australians are continuing to embrace IT as part of their day to day activities. As people have become more familiar and comfortable with particular technologies, the rate of use among the population has increased.

This is particularly true of the Internet, where the number of Australians who use this technology to shop, pay bills, access services or simply surf continues to rise.

Overall, half of the adults in Australia, or 6.9 million adults, accessed the Internet during the twelve months to November 2000. This compares to 1999 levels when 6.0 million adults, (44 percent of the total) accessed the Internet.

During the 3 months to November 2000, 13 percent of all Australian adults used the Internet to pay bills or transfer funds and 12 percent used the Internet to access government services.

More Australian adults now access the Internet at home than at any other place. Almost one third (32 percent) accessed the Internet at home, while a quarter (25 percent) accessed from work and a similar number (24 percent) accessed the Internet at sites other than home or work. In contrast, the rates for the equivalent period in 1999 were 21 percent at home, 21 percent at work and 25 percent at sites other than home or work.

The growth in home Internet use is reflected in the increase of the number of households with home Internet access. By November 2000, 2.7 million (37 percent) Australian households had home Internet access, up from 1.7 million (25 percent) in November 1999. Expectations are that every second household will have home Internet access before the end of 2001.

Details are in the final edition of Use of the Internet by Householders, Australia, November 2000(cat. no. 8147.0) available from ABS bookshops. The main features of the publication are available on this site.If you wish to purchase a copy of this publication, contact the ABS Bookshop in your capital city.

Unless otherwise noted, content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia Licence together with any terms, conditions and exclusions as set out in the website Copyright notice. For permission to do anything beyond the scope of this licence and copyright terms contact us.